There was thunder cracking and rumbling and lightning flashing about all over the sky.

When you are at sea you get a good view of lightning in a storm because you have so much sky around you in every direction.

Thunderstorms very often happen when the air is very humid in the summer, but they can happen at any time of the year.

When the ground is warm, the air is heavy with water vapour and winds mould the clouds, the conditions are right for a lightning storm.

When my nephews Bill and Bob were younger they were quite frightened of thunder and lightning because the noise of the thunder can be quite loud and the brightness of lightning can be so dazzling.

So l told them that it was just the angels moving the furniture about in heaven () to make them feel safer.

To be sure that l keep myself safe, l have a lightning conductor on my lighthouse. Lightning is very strong electricity jumping between the sky and the earth or moving around inside the clouds.

Nobody wants to get hit by lightning because it would be very dangerous if they did.

When lightning travels down from the sky to earth it will want to go by the shortest route possible, so it usually hits the highest point in any landscape it can find.

A conductor on a high building is a strip of metal that carries the charge of electricity down to the ground safely. You can very often see them on churches with high towers or steeples.

The strips of metal run down the side of the wall and have a prong at the top pointing into the sky to attract the lightning strike. lt is better that the lightning travels down the conductor than hits the building because that would be very destructive.

lf you are ever out in the open in a storm, it is best NOT to hide under a tall tree because you don’t want to be in a place where lightning might strike. You certainly shouldn’t be holding a metal golf club because that will attract it to you!

The safest place is in a car. lf you are on open ground, it is best to maybe go down on your knees and curl into a ball – don’t lie down flat.

There are three main types of lightning: sheet, when the clouds light up as though there was a light behind them, fork or streak, which is the light that you see as bright, white crooked lines flashing quickly across the sky, and ball, which is very rare.

You can also see lightning in ash plumes above an erupting volcano.

Lightning flashes so fast that it flashes in 10,000th of a second, it is 2-5cm wide and it is about three times hotter than the surface of the sun!

That is to say about 20,000°c.

Thunder is the sound of the lightning strike and the sound rumbles outwards through the air. lt travels at 700 mph.

Have you noticed that you hear thunder after you see lightning? This is because light travels faster than sound, so the light from the lightning gets to you before the sound of the thunder.

lf you want to know how far away a thunderstorm is from you, there is an easy way to find out.

Count out how many seconds there are between the flashes of light and the cracks of thunder. Each five seconds is equal to one mile and each three seconds is equal to one kilometre.

lf the time decreases (as you count after each flash), the storm is coming towards you, and if it increases, then the storm is moving away.

Lightning is very common on our planet, with 40-100 strikes per second worldwide!

The nearer you get to the equator, the more likely you are to see lightning, and the closer you get to the poles, the less likely you are to see it.

There is also lighting on Venus, Jupiter and Saturn as well.

The study of lightning is called ‘fulminology’ – that is a big word to learn!

It is connected to a strip of copper that runs down the side of a building to the ground

The copper strip carries the lightning strike safely to earth

Sheet lightning

Fork lightning

Fork lightning

Ball lightning

Volcano lightning

Lightning on Earth as seen from space

Lightning over the sea

Lightning hits the Shard, the tallest building in London

(photo sent on Twitter 22.05.2014)

Lightening is dramatic and beautiful

You have to be lucky to photograph lightning because it is so quick

A storm over the sea

Don’t stand under trees in a thunderstorm!

THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

I don’t expect that you have ever seen ball lightning, have you?

It is so rare that scientists find it very difficult to study it.

Ball lightning has been seen to float across land, through buildings and even bounce down the aisles of aeroplanes!

Scientists have now been able to produce ball lightning in a laboratory from a specially prepared solution. It only lasts for about half a second but it is now possible for them to begin to study ball lightning to find out more about it.

If you have recycled all your Christmas cards but still have a lot of postage stamps from cards sent to you that you would like to use to help charities, then the following people would love to have them.

You could even set up a box in your classroom at school to collect even more – have a word with your teacher and see what she thinks.

Please make sure that you put enough postage on your packets when you send them off:-

As well as stamps, the following charity can also recycle postcards and foreign currency to help animals:-

Animal SOS Sri Lanka

64 Fair Acres, Prestwood, Great Missenden, Bucks, HP16 0LE

Thank you very much!

And – Siyabonga! (Zulu: we praise/thank you)

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PLEASE CONTACT:

christina.sinclair.ads@aol.co.uk

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Quick Quiz

What do these phrases mean?

as quick as lightning

lightning never strikes in the same place twice

like a streak of lightning

BLOW MY FOGHORN!!!

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lt’s the Weekend!

HOW TO DO RlBBON WEAVlNG

Measure the edges of the cushion and the width of your ribbon to know how much you will need. You can use any kind of ribbon in a mixture of widths and as many colours as you like. The design is totally up to you.

Cut a piece of backing fabric slightly larger than the size you want your cushion to be.

Cut your pieces of ribbon all the same length if you want a square cushion.

Pin the ends of the strips along the top and the side of the backing fabric.

Weave the ribbons together to create your design.

When the weaving is straight tack into place around the outer edges removing the pins as you work.

(Or tack the ends of the ribbons along the top and one edge then weave them together and sew the opposite ends into place).

Put the back cover of the cushion face down on the ribbon and sew around the edge of your design making sure that you don’t catch any part of it in your line of sewing (you only want to sew into the ends of the ribbon not the sides) leaving a gap for turning and stuffing.

Clip the corners before you turn the cushion the right way out.

When you turn the cushion out the right way make sure that the ribbons are lying flat and straight.

Stuff the cushion inserting a sachet of lavender or pot pourri if you like, and sew up the gap including a loop to hang the sachet up by.

Add another bow onto the loop.

The cushion can be hung up on your bed head or in your wardrobe.

The ribbon cushion in the photograph uses;-

3 colours of 1cm wide ribbon – 1 metre each colour

1 colour of 1cm wide ribbon – 1½ metres

2 x 14cm squares of quite heavyweight white fabric

TIP

Ribbon weaving can also be used to cover box tops or make small inserts for the front of greetings cards.

Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.

It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.

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